Plot Intro
Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is an intelligent but indolent young man living in dingy basement flat in an impoverished district of Seoul with his father Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), mother Kim Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) and sister Kim Ki-jeong (Park So-dam). An old friend of his gets him the role of a tutor to the teenage daughter of the wealthy Park family. But Ki-woo doesn’t have any qualifications, so he forges his documents and cons his way into the Parks’ good books. Gradually the rest of the Kim family gain positions in the Parks’ service through fraudulent ways until eventually the family are gaining a more comfortable income. But when the Park family go away for a camping weekend, the Kims discover a dark secret hidden within the Parks’ house…
As I write this article, Twitter (and not just the millennial movie critics of Twitter) are still going mad. Parasite’s win is an undeniable landmark, being the first non-English language movie to win the big title, and it very cheekily took Best International Feature Film too.
It bloody deserves it too. The favourite to win, 1917, was great, with immersive visuals and intense camera work. But where Parasite trumps it is in its multi-layered storytelling, and I will try to explain what I mean without giving away too much of the plot.
In a nutshell, Parasite is about class, most pertinently in South Korea but it seems to have struck a nerve across the world. The Kim family are the lower class “parasites”, living in a tiny, smelly basement flat. One of their first scenes sees them keeping their windows open to let fumigation fumes in- even though it stinks. People outside their window piss and vomit in the street. They even liken themselves to cockroaches, and often their movements around the Parks’ house evokes insect-like behaviour through their hunched, scuttling, jerky movements, their deception, and their tendency to hide in dark, concealed corners. The only way they can infiltrate such a world of peace and cleanliness is through deception and by destroying the lives of others. And like real body parasites, they dwell within the host body (the Parks) and pretty much suck the life out of them to survive.
Furthermore, when they travel from their basement to the Park household, they are always travelling upwards via steps and hilly roads. When returning, they travel downwards, and when it pours with rain, the torrents of dirty water hurtle down from the wealthier part of town, and destroys the poorer. There’s a real sense of hierarchy here, with the gullible, anxious Parks at the top and the conniving parasitic Kims at the bottom. Indeed, these basements flats really exist in parts of Seoul. Originally built in the '60s as bunkers in case the North Koreans invaded, over-population has let to them being adapted into cheap housing, and they are far from ideal. This film may do a lot for Korean filmmakers but perhaps not for the Seoul tourist board, or for capitalism.
Another major reason to see this film is Bong Joon-ho’s direction, which is so carefully and intricately constructed that I can imagine him planning out every single shot with meticulous detail. The ominous stairs to the basement are jet-black but surrounded by vast golden shelves containing glass sculptures, trophies, expensive wines and other symbols of status; the camera is often angled to look up or down, depending on the characters’ social position; symbols such as the perfect geometry of the Parks’ interior design and the Park’s son’s obsession with Native American role play; all of these create a film that has many things to say about how capitalism constructs an arbitrary and destructive social hierarchy, but tells it in a way that is coherent and accessible for all.
If I say anymore, I run the risk of revealing the various plot developments, all of which left me surprised but convinced that this sort of thing could really happen. I’ll finish by saying that Parasite is one of the most incisive, exciting movies ever made and I am over the moon that it won Best Picture, creating a momentous end to what has actually been a momentous decade of Oscar winners.
Highlight
The scene in which the Parks leave for camping, so the Kims help themselves to the food and drink in the house and have an impromptu party. Throughout the scene there is a growing, intangible sense that something significant is about to happen, and bloody hell it does.
Lowlight
Absolutely none. This is tightly and perfectly constructed.
Mark
10/10
This is the final film in our reviewing project. It has taken us almost exactly three years to watch our way through nine decades of Oscar winners, and I have to say I’m a little sad it’s over.
But what a way to end it.
Parasite is an extraordinary win in so many ways. The first ever non-English speaking film to take the prize, seeing a stage filled with Korean film-makers and producers, delivering speeches in their native tongue, and translated by a charming Korean translator (herself a film director) was utterly wonderful in what is so predominantly a white male environment. Seeing Jane Fonda, an actress devoted to diversity and the promotion of liberal, vital issues, allow herself the tiniest of smiles before announcing the winner was also wonderful. Seeing the Hollywood elite refuse to allow the Oscars producers to dim the lights on the speeches, chanting as one in their seats and forcing them to turn the lights back on so the producers could finish their speeches - magical.
It was the best result we could have hoped for.
Parasite is an extraordinary film. The director Bong-Joon Ho hasn’t left a thing to chance. From the scuttling motions of the Kim family as they crawl about the Park’s house to make less sound, to the gentle, uneasy shots of the glamorous shelves that surround the darkness of the cellar entrance - we are aware something is up.
It’s very hard to go into why this film is so clever and intriguing without ruining everything. Suffice to say that when a character turns to the others and invites them to follow her, chills run down your back without you knowing why. After the set-up invites you to understand, if not like, the ambitious Kim family, the rest of the film leaves you growingly uneasy about their actions. The Park family, while rich and thoughtless, are kind and loving. No one is a real villain or hero - one film review posited that the real villain is capitalism which rings increasingly true.
What we see is the desperation of those in need. People turn on each other with astonishing rapidity. Without revealing anything, the use of the endearment ‘sis’ in one scene becomes weaponised, a plea to the more powerful person, which can flip entirely in a moment. We see the Kim family, literally scuttling home, leave the high up Park family home, climbing down flights of stairs. What begins as light rain at the top of the mountain, is flooding sewage water by the bottom. The Kim family home, floating with sewage, is grotesque. They smell of it - as the Park’s son unwittingly says.
And yet the next day the Park matriarch brightly delights in the rain, in front of the Kim family, saying that it’s washed the streets clean. It’s not barbed, but it’s cruel, and Bong-Joon Ho doesn’t miss a trick in showing how these micro-aggressions begin to build and build. The Park family aren’t horrible at all, but the sheer way in which they can live their life is an affront to the struggling Kim family. The denouement, while dramatic, feels entirely real. It’s captivating and ghastly.
Ultimately, this is a film that touches on so many things - privilege, class, hunger, desperation. As the Kim matriarch drunkenly says - anyone can be kind if they don’t want for anything. It’s a savagely delivered line (side note - where were the acting nominations? There should have been at least five) that sums up the whole film to some extent. In a society that deprives some so entirely, how can we expect anything but desperation and anger?
Highlight
I can’t tell you because it’ll spoil the film. Just take it as a plea to go watch it.
Lowlight
None.
Mark
10/10
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